Open Letter to the Biden Administration and US Congress Calling for Urgent High-Level US Leadership to Address Escalating Global COVID-19 Vaccine Crisis

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The unprecedented wave of COVID-19 now engulfing India, Brazil, and other nations—and the extreme and widening global inequities in access to vaccines—test our collective conscience and threaten our national security. Worsening mass illness and deaths, a preventable humanitarian catastrophe, are destabilizing, and projected to increase. Urgent action is required to stem global circulation of the virus and the consequent inevitable emergence of new variants, which threaten to undermine Americans’ hard-fought but fragile vaccine immunity, putting lives and economic recovery at risk. President Biden has promised to restore American leadership abroad. The world is now in great need of high-level engagement that up to now has been conspicuously absent—to mitigate death and suffering in the short term, chart a sustained exit from the COVID-19 pandemic in the medium term, and insure…
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Press Release: New Study Shows Rich Country Shopping Spree for COVID-19 Vaccines Could Mean Fewer Vaccinations for Billions in Low-Income Countries

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Data reveal members of a global pact promising vaccine equity are among those undermining the initiative; frenzy of deals covers some 8.8 billion doses Durham, NC, USA (November 2, 2020)—A new global assessment of purchasing agreements for COVID-19 vaccines reveals that high-income countries, as well as a few middle-income countries flush with manufacturing capacity, have already purchased nearly 3.8 billion doses, with options for another five billion. The analysis, released today by the Duke Global Health Innovation Center, shows that many of these countries will be able to vaccinate their entire populations—and some many times over—before billions of people are vaccinated in low-income countries. “An ambitious effort to create a global system of vaccine equity is being undermined as a handful of countries—including those who made a commitment to equality—secure…
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Duke Global Health Innovation Center To Develop A “Launch And Scale Speedometer” For Global Health Interventions

Duke Global Health Innovation Center To Develop A “Launch And Scale Speedometer” For Global Health Interventions

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The Duke Global Health Innovation Center (GHIC) will develop a global health innovation ‘Launch and Scale Speedometer’, a three-year, $2 million initiative to identify evidence-based practices and pathways that accelerate the introduction and scale up of life-saving technologies and interventions, supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF). Addressing the lack of high-quality data about best practices to develop, launch, and scale health interventions, such as drugs, devices, and diagnostics, in low- and middle-income countries, the Duke GHIC will collect data on intervention pathway milestones and identify key variables that could accelerate or impede pathways to scale. “This is a great opportunity for the Duke Global Health Innovation Center to leverage our expertise in studying and supporting health innovations to develop stronger data and evidence to inform the broader…
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Global Health Innovation Center Collaborates with RTI on ReachHealth Project

Global Health Innovation Center Collaborates with RTI on ReachHealth Project

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[caption id="attachment_520" align="alignright" width="300"] Photo courtesy RTI International[/caption] Research Triangle Park, NC – The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has selected RTI International to implement a five-year initiative to strengthen and improve access to critical health services for Filipino families. Beginning later this year, the Family Planning / Maternal & Neonatal Health Innovations and Capacity Building Platform (ReachHealth) will help Philippine communities reduce unmet needs for family planning services and decrease teen pregnancy and newborn morbidity and mortality. “We share USAID’s vision and goal of empowering local and national stakeholders in the Philippines to improve family planning and maternal and neonatal health services, as well as ensure local health systems are strong and resilient,” said Richard Reithinger, Vice President of Global Health at RTI. “Building on accomplishments made…
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Press Announcement – Two new awards for Saving Lives at Birth program

Press Announcement – Two new awards for Saving Lives at Birth program

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Announcement - January 2018: Duke Global Health Innovation Center wins two new awards totaling over $13 million to enhance global effort to save lives at birth DURHAM, N.C. – Several Duke University organizations, led by the Duke Global Health Innovation Center (GHIC), are partnering with  the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and other global development organizations to evaluate the Saving Lives at Birth program and help organizations scale up maternal and newborn health innovations more quickly and sustainably. Saving Lives at Birth:  A Grand Challenge for Development seeks groundbreaking prevention and treatment approaches for pregnant women and newborns in poor, hard-to-reach communities around the time of delivery.  The effort is funded by a partnership of international development organizations including USAID, the Government of Norway (Norad), the Bill & Melinda Gates…
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